2009.10.14

Mid last month (September, for those keeping score at home), a peculiar email arrived in my inbox. Therein, I was referred by an Apple employee with an opportunity to potentially work there. To say the least, my interest was piqued. After all, after spending the past 2 years up to my elbows in some of their software’s guts, reverse engineering, patching, and exploring, I’d like to think I had some authority on the subject.

Being an employee referral, some cool perks came my way. Specifically, I got to skip the phone interview entirely, and got flown out there, put up in a nice hotel (Cypress Hotel), and had a fun dark blue Mazda 5 waiting for me. Very smooth, to say the least. I’m pretty sure that everyone who gets interviewed receives such treatment.

From first contact to flight out there, it was 2 weeks. Pretty darn fast.

After resting up that evening in San Jose, I awoke the next morning for the interview. I was told that ongoings in said interview are confidential. In general, things went pretty smoothly. Getting to meet the QC team was quite exciting, and meeting several talented engineers is also always great. Finally, the recruiter came in, we threw around some numbers, and then I left for my flight home. My total time in interviews was around 4-4.5 hours, and my total time in San Jose was about 16 hours. Very brief.

Within a week, the background check company had contacted me to verify my employment. Paystubs, Articles of Incorporation, and all that went in. Then, a turn for the worst: a week of absolute silence. 2 weeks without hearing anything is never a good sign.

Today, the rejection letter finally came. Total time from first contact to rejection: 28 days. Citing budgetary issues etc. Whether or not that’s valid is of no concern to me. At least it frees me up to continue working on things here. Though I am a bit worried about the future of the technology I’ve so lovingly dealt with…

So, there you have it: a brief trip into the heart of the Reality Distortion Field itself, and then a successful deflection.

[…] what happened? Dialing the Way Back machine back to October 2009, you may recall a certain Reality Distortion Field Deflection. At the time, it looked like I was still Columbus bound for the time being. However, some phone […]